


Visitation

by privatesnarker



Category: Elisabeth (Színház)
Genre: Afterlife, Asphyxiation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 15:32:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16977240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/privatesnarker/pseuds/privatesnarker
Summary: In which Lucheni gets a visit.





	Visitation

**Author's Note:**

> Still not over emergency cover Dolhai Lucheni, so when I sat down to write RésJ it ended up Elisabeth fic instead. Woops. This musical is really hard to write for.
> 
> Death/Lucheni, not in the “aw I want these people to be happy together” sense, but the “oh man this could be really messed up” sense. Warning for discussion of suicide, as can be expected of Lucheni. This is Hungarian Elisabeth, so Death is extra glittery and not blond.

The prison cell had looked the same for the last two hundred years - stone walls, metal door, plank-bed, noose. A makeshift copy of the real thing, the real cell, built of real stone that definitely had not given off blue light. That cell also hadn’t stretched upwards to impossible heights, like the inside of an enormous chimney. Somewhere up there in the darkness, the rope dangling all the way down must be tied to something. So far Lucheni hadn’t been bored enough to climb up and find out. Maybe he would be soon.

It was off-time. With everyone else asleep in their coffins, Lucheni lay buried in here, his private crypt. There was no way to tell the time - the blue light only dimmed in preparation for the spotlight, immediately before the next show started. Then the walls would fade for the audience to see him, and once more he would be the master of the dead. Be they emperor or chambermaid, to his tune they all must dance. Well. Almost all.

Once upon a time he had felt that his own guilt and regret must’ve seeped right into the walls, to poison his every moment of purgatory with memories. But with enough time, all pain becomes routine, becomes background noise, becomes silence. These days (or nights? It was all shows), the walls were just walls. Lying on his plank-bed with eyes half-closed, Lucheni felt nothing in particular.

It was really fucking boring, is what it was.

The door creaked. The sound cut through the haze of his doze, and he was up on his feet before he had even fully realized what this meant — nobody had ever come in through that door, not once in all this time. But now it swung open, crunching, unwilling, and oh, of course it could only be one person, gliding in amid a rustle of velvet and the darkness of starless nights. The old show-off could’ve walked right through the walls if he so pleased, grown out of the shadows like he loved to do on stage.

“Your Majesty,” and if he could, Lucheni would have bowed so low his nose brushed the floor, just to achieve the appropriate level of ridiculousness,“what brings me the honour of a visit?” Could Death even recognize irony? Lucheni had never been sure.

No answer. The day Death would stop being cryptic and uncommunicative was the day Lucheni would go to Heaven. His Majesty was looking around the small room, face devoid of any expression besides haughtiness.

“The place hasn’t changed. Your Majesty has been here before.” But did he remember? Sometimes Lucheni felt he might be the only one doomed to remember all, and in the right order, show after show after show.

“Just the once.”

Lucheni followed his gaze to the noose in the corner. Yes, he had been here, that very first time, when there had been no audience and no stage, and the cell had been a real cell.

“Just the once,” he echoed. “All who die here, night after night, are visited by Death, every time. Only your loyal helper and murderer dies alone…” here he cocked his head to the side and looked up through lowered lashes, “… and unkissed.”

“Is that what you keep pestering me for? A kiss?”

What harsh judgement. And Lucheni had been so good, for five successive shows, performing without much enthusiasm, but scrupulously adhering to the script. Only then, in the last one, Death had swanned past him on stage a little too close to resist reaching out for a strand of silky black hair, running through his fingers like water. The glare had been spectacular. Somehow Lucheni had expected retribution to come swifter, and less… calm. He was nearly disappointed.

“Your Majesty, I am dead. The dead want nothing but a respite from boredom.” And when neither the challenging grin nor the direct stare got any reaction, he decided to escalate things a little further, step a little closer, speak a little bolder.

“But you… what do you want?”

…Not to have this conversation, apparently. Son of a bitch just turned around and made to leave. But this wasn’t part of the play, and here he couldn’t just breeze off stage and leave Lucheni to continue as scripted. This visit wasn’t over yet.

“She is gone” —yes, he was listening, he must be— “and she never really comes back.” And yes, that was a balled fist, he’d finally gotten to him, “You don’t love her anymore, yet you keep— ”

The movement was too fast to follow. All Lucheni saw was a rush of dark fabric, and a white hand coming for him, and the next moment he was barely standing on his toes, shoulders and head pressed against the wall, held up by his throat with inhuman strength. The rush of fear was pure instinct, before he remembered he was dead already. With a bit of effort, he could even speak.

“I see. You’re here for nostalgic reminiscing.” And now the walls were no longer silent, and it was all coming back. Pacing up and down this tiny room, fear and remorse, hellfire on his mind. The noose had seemingly come out of nowhere, and out of the darkness, the merciless face of his personal angel of judgement. How he had feared him back then.

“Go ahead. This time I won’t beg.” Not like he had the first time. Not like he had for the first few hundred shows, until he’d realized the Judge was nothing but a broken record playing over and over, and Death was as much an actor on the stage as everyone else.

“Not for what you already know.” His expressions were difficult to read, but this one looked decidedly smug. The master manipulator at work, oh dear, everyone get ready to applaud. He leaned in closer, nose nearly brushing Lucheni’s cheek. “But… for what you’ve never had?”

What would a kiss from Death even matter at this point? Would it make him die for good? Would it give him a blissful moment of oblivion until the next show started? Would it not have any effect at all? Whatever the outcome, Lucheni had pondered them all, in the long hours of blue light and boredom. And see, Death, he was proud, and so he expected everyone else to be, too. What difference was there between an order and a plea but the tone of voice? Could Death even recognize earnestness?

And now, the real performance of tonight. Spotlights on, waterworks stand by as needed.

“Please. Just this once, I’m begging you, let me have what all the others—”

And see, Death, he could never resist gloating, not in the long run.

Finale, curtains.


End file.
